Brooklyn Project Shakes Hispanic-Hasidic Peace

By ARI L. GOLDMAN

Published: October 1, 1990

A square city block in Williamsburg, overgrown with tall grass and wild shrubs, has become a battleground between Hasidic Jews and Hispanic residents in a struggle for control in the deeply split Brooklyn neighborhood.

The largest Hasidic sect in the area, the Satmar, which bought the land from the city, has drawn up plans to build what they believe will be the nation's largest synagogue, with 6,000 seats. A Satmar school for boys with 55 classrooms and housing for teachers are also planned for the land, for a total project costing more than $20 million.

But a coalition of Hispanic groups, claiming that their constitutional rights have been violated, has gone to Federal court to permanently block the construction. The coalition, which has obtained a temporary restraining order, claims that New York City, in collusion with the Satmar, circumvented standard legal procedures in selling the land. The development, they say, will tip the area's ethnic balance and lead to Hispanic residents being forced out.

While the neighborhood awaits a ruling from Federal Judge Eugene H. Nickerson in Brooklyn, the land lies fallow and tensions have mounted.

''Our people are angry, very angry,'' said Carmen Calderon, a director of the Southside Fair Housing Committee, the group that brought the suit. ''The city has handed over one piece of city-owned land after another so that a Jewish sect can create its own enclave.''

Competition for Affordable Housing

Representatives of the Hasidic community, however, argue that they followed every legal procedure and paid a fair price for the land. As a result of their labors, they insist, Williamsburg will find new stability that will benefit all residents.

''Nothing was done behind closed doors; all was legal and with all the bureaucratic attachments,'' said Rabbi Hertz Frankel, the principal of a Satmar school for girls who serves as a community spokesman. Public hearings were held, he said, and the plan was approved by the City Council and the Board of Estimate.

''This lawsuit comes out of the blue after 15 years of planning,'' added Rabbi Frankel. ''It creates a Jewish-Hispanic tension in the community for no reason.''

The battle over the land stands out against the backdrop of long-standing competition between Hasidic Jews and Hispanic residents for affordable housing in Williamsburg. While Hispanic residents are the largest group in the entire Williamsburg neighborhood, Hasidic Jews are predominant in a triangular area bounded by the East River, the Williamsburg Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

The Hasidic growth rate is staggering. ''We double our population every 8 to 10 years,'' said Rabbi Frankel, who estimates that the Satmar population in Williamsburg is about 40,000. ''Our average family has 7.6 children. In Williamsburg alone, we have 7,500 children in our schools.''

The Hasidic children, educated separately and distinct in their dark dress and religious habits, have little interaction with the Hispanic children who live next door. In general, Hispanic and Jewish neighbors live peacefully in separate but adjoining worlds.

In recent years, in fact, there have been more violent confrontations between different Satmar sects than between Satmar and Hispanic neighbors.

Careful Apartment Allocations

Jewish-Hispanic tolerance, if not harmony, has been achieved through carefully negotiated settlements worked out with government officials over the last two decades. Under these settlements, Jewish and Hispanic neighbors have been allocated apartments in three high-rise public housing units and several other subsidized developments that surround the vacant property that is now in dispute.

The property, at Ross Street and Bedford Avenue, has one building on it: the home of the head of the Satmar sect, Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum.

The entire block, like many others in the area, was condemned by the city in the late 1960's as part of a huge urban renewal program to clear Williamsburg of slum property. Since then, the land was bought back, parcel by parcel, by the Satmar group.

Construction of the boys' school has only recently begun. When the school is finished, the group hopes to complete the plan by building the faculty housing and the huge synagogue.

A Symbol to Both Sides

Martin S. Needelman, chief counsel for Brooklyn Legal Services, a part of the coalition that has sued, said that the development of the square block had become a symbol of Hasidic domination in the area - to both Hispanic and Hasidic residents.

''This is the culmination of the city delivering the Williamsburg Urban Renewal Area to the Satmar Hasidim,'' he said.

In legal papers submitted to Judge Nickerson, the Hispanic group charged that the city gave the land through ''sleight of hand'' and ''sole source designation,'' in which a developer is selected without advertising or inviting others to build in the area.

''Without meaningful relief in this case,'' the papers said, the Hispanic residents ''will be relegated to second-class citizenship status and inevitably leave what was their community, because they will no longer feel welcome or have appropriate services available to them.''

Some Non-Hasidic Uses Sought

The Hispanic group has not made a competing proposal. Instead, it wants to have a say in how the land is developed, so that some part will be used to meet the needs of non-Hasidim.

Their complaint alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit government establishment of religion, as well as the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act.

Lawyers for the Satmar and the city, however, countered that the Constitution does not forbid municipalities to sell land to religious groups and that in fact, churches have been built on urban renewal land.

In testimony before Judge Nickerson in August, Rabbi Philip Klein, a Satmar administrator, said that the group's policies were not exclusionary. While virtually all Hasidim are white, he said, Hispanic people or blacks, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, can gain admittance to the Satmar schools if they adhere to its religious rules.

Kosher, but All Are Welcome

Furthermore, he said, non-Jewish residents will be welcome to rent the school's lunchroom provided they comply with strict dietary laws that are part of the Satmar's religious beliefs.

Representatives for the Satmar and the city also defended the way the land was sold to the Jewish group, saying that until recently ''sole source'' contracting was standard. After public bidding was ordered, the auction was widely advertised but no Hispanic or other group made a development proposal, they said.

''They have no other plans for that land,'' said Rabbi Frankel. ''Why do they want to stop us?''

Photo: Rabbi Hertz Frankel standing next to a block in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn that Hasidic Jews and Hispanic residents are struggling to control. ''It creates a Jewish-Hispanic tension in the community for no reason,'' Rabbi Frankel said of a lawsuit filed to block construction of a synagogue on the land. (Barton Silverman/The New York Times) (pg. B3)